The Leader of Rossendale Council, Councillor Alyson Barnes, has this week written to the Government to seek clarification on the legislation requiring all Councils to identify what traveller sites are needed across Local Authority areas as part of the production of a Local Plan.

Exciting plans on the future of Rawtenstall town centre have been released, which include new leisure and retail units, a hotel and attractive public space.

Following a planning application submission by Rossendale Borough Council and Barnfield Investment Properties in December 2017, the design team has enhanced the originally submitted scheme to address comments from consultees, including Historic England and local individuals.

Marketing Lancashire, the Destination Management Organisation (DMO) for Lancashire has announced the release of the Official Lancashire Visitor Magazine 2017.
At 146 pages the 2017 Lancashire Magazine is bigger than ever before and available at key attractions, gateways and information centres across the country. It is also available online at visitlancashire.com, the county’s official tourism website which enjoys 6 million page views a year.

The Rossendale Business Awards were a huge success this year, demonstrating the strong, expansive business offer the Valley is home to.

The event, run by Valley at Work, marked its 7th year this year, and each time it gets bigger and better. The selection of winners on the evening demonstrated the strength in tourism, creative business and enterprising people in Rossendale.

Double Paralympic silver medallist Tom Hamer was the special guest at Rossendale Leisure Trust’s ‘Celebration of sport’ event at the Riverside, Whitworth.

The event, which took place on Friday 21st October, was part of the Trusts annual acknowledgement of sport in the Valley.

The evening played host to a variety of achievers including teachers and children from Thorn primary school, Ski Rossendale, fundraisers for Rossendale Hospice Vikki Hardwick and Richard Watts, promising badminton player Akshay Narayan and Whitworth Water Ski Academy.

Members of the Rossendale Together Barnfield Joint Venture Partnership Board have welcomed news that plans to redevelop Rawtenstall town centre have been approved.

Councillor Alyson Barnes, Chair of the RTB Partnership and Leader of the Council, said: “I am pleased the scheme has been given planning permission. We listened to people and now I believe these plans are the right mix of preserving the area’s heritage as well as creating a vibrant town centre.

Boost for Business is running a Flood Recovery Grant Scheme to support businesses severely affected (either directly or indirectly) by the December 2015 flooding in Lancashire and the fund is open until February 28th 2016.

This grant scheme is to support small and medium sized businesses severely affected (either directly or indirectly) by the flooding of December 2015, to help businesses recover quickly and get back trading successfully and being sustainable.

This is a North West partnership campaign across Cheshire, Merseyside, Blackburn, Blackpool and Lancashire.

1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men have suffered domestic abuse. It’s not just physical violence. Domestic abuse can be emotional too – like threats and controlling behaviour. It’s behind closed doors. It’s known, but not talked about.

The Rossendale Together Barnfield Joint Venture Partnership (also known as the RTB Partnership) aims to build a more prosperous borough by delivering regeneration projects.

Together Housing Group is one of the partners of the RTB Partnership. Here Together Housing Group director and RTB Partnership Board member Ian Clark talks about the Group’s role on the board and looks at some of the housing developments that have been delivered.

Marketing Lancashire is celebrating the announcement that the prestigious Visit England Awards for Excellence 2016 which will take place at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool on Tuesday 8 March, during English Tourism Week (5-13 March) and four Lancashire Tourism Awards 2015 winners have beaten strong competition from across the country and will now represent Lancashire as finalists.

Rossendale Borough Council would like to thank all residents, business owners, local groups and volunteers for their help, support and assistance during the Boxing Day floods and in the aftermath.

We would also like to thank our local partners for the help and assistance they have provided during these events; Lancashire County Council, the Environment Agency, Lancashire Police, Lancashire Fire and Rescue and United Utilities.

Rossendale Council has announced central government details of a scheme to help householders and businesses make their properties more resistant to future floods. Under the scheme, householders and businesses affected by Storms Desmond and Eva in Rossendale can apply to the Council for grants of up to £5,000 to help make their homes/businesses more resilient to flooding in the future.

The Rossendale Together Barnfield Partnership has recently embarked on a project of visiting the homes of people who have recently moved in to new, successful schemes that have recently been delivered.

Laura and Steve Mcnally moved into their new home in Bacup in 2015.

Their home is part of a new development in the town centre called Millstream Close.